From Rachel Toor
After I confessed I don’t donate to my alma mater (with its $40 billion endowment), a former fundraiser delivered a smackdown, asking if I was “really clueless when it comes to the value of alumni participation … to the success of our institutions and yes, your favorite subject, their presidents?”
Among the faulty assumptions in her email, that last phrase kept nagging at me. Presidents aren’t my “favorite subject”—they’re the explicit focus of this newsletter. There’s a crucial difference.
Before I was asked to take on this task, the college presidency seemed like an impossible job—high stakes, high stress, and low appreciation. Who would choose such a path? I was genuinely curious. And the deeper I dug, the more I realized how little I (and most people) understood about the reality of the role.
The co-creator of the best show currently on TV, The Pitt, R. Scott Gemmill, said something in an interview that resonated: “‘What is the one thing you want people to know that they don’t know about your profession?’ It’s shining a light on a situation so everyone realizes how tenuous it can be. There’s already a health-care crisis, but there’s an even bigger one looming.”
Sound familiar?
Noah Wyle brilliantly enacts the emotional toll of being in charge of a hospital ER, just as many of the presidents I talk to disclose, in confidence, their own occasional meltdowns in the face of the current crises.
Critics have described The Pitt as “competence porn”—showing skilled professionals navigating impossible situations with expertise and humanity. That’s what I hope we’re doing here. Not because presidents are my pet interest, but because understanding their challenges offers insight into how our institutions actually function.
Or don’t. At this point, I’ve heard a lot of similar stories. I often ask new presidents about changes they’ve made to the executive team, about who on campus they can talk honestly to, and about money.
In far too many cases, there have been unpleasant surprises. A newly minted president shows up on campus ready to lead the institution into a bright future. Then comes the closed-door meeting with someone who slides over a folder and says, “There’s something you should see.”
The worst is when finances are a freaking disaster. Maybe the board didn’t fully disclose the real problems. Maybe they were clueless themselves. Maybe no one bothered to file taxes for a few years. Or perhaps the endowment has been treated like a trust-fund kid’s emergency credit card.
Often aspiring presidents say they didn’t know to ask the right questions, even if doing so means they might not be hired. That matters because once you’re in the president’s chair, those financial problems become yours.
That’s why I’m particularly grateful this week to share some advice from Kara Freeman, a fantastic and generous expert.
